


Breeder

by tristesses



Category: Original Work
Genre: Conditioning, Dark, Dehumanization, Double Penetration, Egg Laying, Forced Orgasm, Forced Pregnancy, Other, Oviposition, Science Fiction, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:49:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: Mara is captured by slavers for a very specific purpose.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatspants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatspants/gifts).



The colonization vessel _Robinson_ is boarded by slavers 52 years into its mission.

They meet with no resistance as they steal through the corridors; the settlers and crew are suspended in stasis, ripe for the picking. They'd trusted the ship's defenses and the enormity of empty space to protect them, believing—correctly, as it turns out—that their convoluted flight path and the difficulty of tracking FTL jumps would keep them safe from those who would do them harm. 

In the end, it's simple coincidence that gets them caught. Wrong place, wrong time. A lone ship floating across the _Raider'_ s path, with outdated shielding and a buggy AI. It was bound to happen eventually.

The slavers don't take everyone aboard the ship, of course. They want only the best: the strongest for physical labor, the plumpest for fodder for their beasts, the most fertile for incubators. Slicing their stasis pods from the wall and attaching the pods to a portable power cell, they drag the pods and their human contents to the _Raider_ and hook them into the ship's systems, locked in individual section of the cargo bay. In the bowels of the ship, the beasts are restive, rumbling and striking at the walls as if they know the slaves meant to sate their appetites have been boarded.

The rest of the _Robinson_ , the slavers scavenge, taking food, spare parts, anything they might need, then send it on its way. They'll keep an eye on it the best they can; they've been placing bets on how long the ship will survive. Smart money's on eight more years, making the ship a little more than halfway to its destination planet, before its systems begin to fail.

The crew of the _Raider_ feel no remorse. Why should they? They got what they wanted, and if a few human lives are sacrificed, well. That's the price you pay for nonsense like colonization efforts.

And in the cargo bay, alone and frightened, the slaves are waking.

 

\---

 

Cold. She's so cold, the kind of chill that permeates the bones and makes a person think longingly of endless sleep. And she's—wet, immersed in some sort of liquid, something forcing her mouth open. Drowning, she's drowning, she's going to _die—_

She claws at the sides of the stasis pod and heaves herself out of the water with a great splash, choking on the breathing tube. A few disorienting seconds pass by as she snatches at fleeting memories, trying to remember where she is and what she's doing.

The _Robinson_ , right. She's one of a group of two hundred settlers, heading to Kepler-422b. She is a botanist. Her name is—it slips from her mind—no, she remembers; her name is Mara. She is one of a group of two hundred settlers—

She keeps up this dry recitation as she slowly removes the breathing tube, pausing when she gags. The doctors say it's the best way to wake up with your mind undamaged in the case of emergency removal from stasis, which this obviously is; Mara's been in and out of stasis dozens of times, and never had such a rough awakening. The breathing tube is harder to remove than usual, as if she's been jostled around and had the delicate systems of her pod interrupted. Was there a debris field the AI couldn't avoid?

Too much input; she can feel her thoughts growing scattered and incoherent. _Concentrate_. Her name is Mara. She's one of a group of two hundred settlers heading for Kepler-422b. She is a botanist. She's uninjured and healthy, aside from stasis shock. She's on the _Robinson_ , one of a group of—

Then Mara takes in the room around her, unfamiliar grey bulkheads and a rough metal floor, completely empty except for her stasis pod. And that's wrong, that isn't how it should be; there should be rows and rows of other pods here, other people _,_ and the _Robinson_ is silver, not iron-dark like this metal is. She's not on the _Robinson_. She's _somewhere else._

Mara freezes, dripping stasis fluid on the floor, her throat rubbed raw by the breathing tube; she's suddenly and vividly aware that she's clad only in a skintight stasis suit, without even a stunner to protect herself. Terror doesn't hit her so much as ooze into her consciousness, choking out disbelief and determination one by one, but she doesn't give into it, not yet.

"Hey," she calls out, voice raspy. "Hey, is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?"

Silence answers her.

"Okay," she whispers to herself, "okay. Keep cool, Mara. You've got this. Remember your training."

Her training, yes. In a potentially hostile situation, keep calm, don't panic. All right, she's not panicking ( _yet_ ). Now check your surroundings for any immediate dangers. Mara glances around, and sees nothing but the grey bulkheads. She doesn't want to move, wants to stay close to the pod and that last beacon of home, but she has to make sure she's safe. With effort, she uproots herself from the floor and takes a step forward, then another, until she reaches the bulkhead, then walks the perimeter of the room, leaning against the wall as she goes, cataloguing other sensations. It's warm in the room, the atmospheric mix and pressure acceptable for humans—whatever's happened, whoever took her, they want her alive. The light is clean and white, like sunlight. Around her, she can feel the vibrations of the FTL engine; she's on a ship, not a space station. The ceilings are high for a ship, the room large; in a brief burst of morbid humor, she thinks that she could get some good exercise jogging around the place.

It's not until she's made one and a half circles of the room that she realizes the truth: there are no airlocks, no doors. She can't get out.

Her training breaks; Mara panics.

She flings herself at a bulkhead, pounding on it, screaming, "Let me out! Get me out of this fucking place!"

Over and over, until her fists are sore and her throat is hoarse. Then she drops to the ground, curls up into a little ball, and cries. She's _alone_. This, more than anything, even more than waking up in a strange place, is what terrifies her; if she had just one other person, she thinks she'd be okay. She could take charge; she could have someone backing her up. But she's alone, and she's helpless, and she can't do anything to save herself, and she's crying so hard it hurts to breathe.

A rattle and a groaning to her left: the bulkhead lowering. Mara scrambles to her feet so she can face whoever's coming through, wishing the stasis pod was in the middle of the room and not against the wall; at least she'd have some protection then. The bulkhead descends excruciatingly slowly, shuddering all the while—this is not a ship as well-made as the _Robinson_ —until it finally reveals what lurks behind it.

Mara screams.

It's not a _who,_ but a _what_ , a hulking, ugly creature with dozens of tentacle-like protrusions all over its body and a snapping mouth like a squid's beak in the center, some sort of shiny fluid gleaming on its sickly green skin. Mara stumbles back, smacking against the wall, unable to take her eyes off the thing. And then it _rolls forward_ , each tentacle slapping the ground and unsticking with a wet suction noise. It's coming for her, and Mara knows in her bones that she is looking at her death, that she's going to be torn into pieces and consumed by that gaping maw. She presses against the wall as if hoping she could melt into it and save herself from her fate, screaming, "Help me! Someone fucking help me!"

No one comes.

A tentacle reaches out and snags her by a leg, tugging her closer. Mara shrieks as she hits the floor, kicking at the beast and clawing at the metal, but it drags her inexorably closer until more tentacles can grab hold of her, trapping her arms and legs no matter how hard she struggles. Her stasis suit rips across her stomach as she flails, and a tentacle slides under the fabric, slick and slimy as it travels up the suit and curls around her breast before tearing the top of the suit away from her body, just as another pair of tentacles does the same with the bottom half. The tentacles are lined with suckers like an octopus, and they suck and pull at her skin, leaving livid red marks in their wake. She struggles in their grasp as they slide over her body, wrapping around her torso, pinning her helplessly in place, but she can't do anything—the beast is so much stronger than her. The beak snaps at her and she screams again; she thinks it's _playing_ with her, like a cat with its meal, and part of her wishes it would just hurry up and kill her.

But then it pulls her legs apart and a thick tentacle with its dozens of suckers slides across her cunt, and a small part of her realizes it's not going to kill her. No. It's going to do something worse.

Dimly, she's aware that her shrieks have changed; she no longer sounds human, but like a wild animal caught in a trap. The beast's tentacles writhe against her, smearing that sticky liquid across her face and in her mouth. She opens it for a scream and the tentacle takes advantage, thrusting hard into her mouth and down her already sore throat. The slick that coats it makes it easier to swallow, though the pressure makes her eyes water and the taste is sour. But she has to take it, has to let this monster fuck her throat, and between her legs—

Between her legs, a thick tentacle is nudging at her entrance, her folds held apart by other, smaller tentacles to give it better access. Bared to it, vulnerable, she pushes against the tentacles with all her might, trying to force it out, but the thick tentacle just keeps pressing against her until she weakens, just for a second, and it slides inside. It starts out narrow but broadens quickly as it forces itself deeper inside her, and she can feel it shuddering and twitching. It fills her up, stretching her wide, and just when she thinks it can't go any deeper— _please, don't let it go deeper, I can't take this, I can't—_ it curls in on itself so it sits like a fist inside her, and pushes more and more of itself in. Then some of the tentacle leaves her, then thrusts back in, but even deeper, in a horrible mimicry of sex. As it thrusts and pounds into her helpless body, Mara keens, a high-pitched whine, her body going rigid. The stretch of it inside her burns, but her traitorous body is _responding,_ a disturbing, throbbing heat that makes her shudder, muscles clenching spasmodically around the intrusion. She fights it as it fills her, but—it feels so _good_ —

"Oh fuck," she's whimpering, "please make it stop, oh god, oh fuck—"

Her thighs twitch and her back arches hard as the beast wrings her climax from her, tearing away the one thing she had left to her: resistance. She goes limp in the aftermath of orgasm, panting and weeping, but the beast doesn't stop, pounding into her hard enough to send shockwaves through her body.

Then she hears something over the sound of her own cries and the wet noise of the beast fucking her. It sounds like a whistle, though it can't be, that's absurd—but the beast seems to stiffen and pause, like a dog obeying its master. It slides out of her with a slurping noise and drops her to the ground. Exhausted, eyes puffy from tears, Mara only sees a humanoid shape standing at the lowered bulkhead before she flees into blissful unconsciousness.

 

\---

 

Mara drifts.

At times, she nearly fights her way to the surface of the haze her mind has become. Snippets of reality flash before her eyes—a medbay, a boy spoon-feeding her soup, low voices arguing quietly next to her ("—shouldn't have done it so soon, she's in shock—might lose valuable cargo")—and sometimes she dreams, but mostly, she just drifts. But unfortunately, she can't stay in the haze forever.

"Rise and shine," a male voice says. She blinks blearily, rising from the haze, and looks at him. He's slouched in a chair by her bedside, a strange-looking man with dark hair, dressed in camo. His proportions aren't quite right; he's too tall, his limbs too lanky. He steeples his fingers and eyes her, a smirk curling his lips.

"Welcome to the waking world," he says. "And congratulations, by the way. You're today's lucky winner in the brooding sweepstakes."

"What?" she croaks, throat dry. At least it doesn't hurt, though for some reason she thinks it should. (A ripple of a memory surfaces, something slimy choking her until she gags.) "Who are you? What's going on?"

"Doesn't matter," he says cheerfully, and leans toward her. "Mara, is it? That's what the label on your stasis pod said."

She nods, dazed. Memories are flooding back to her now, memories of waking alone in an empty room, of weeping, of a monster—

She sits bolt upright, adrenaline rushing through her and sweeping away the last spiderwebs of sleep, and is caught by the restraints chaining her to the bed.

"Sorry about that," says the man, not sounding particularly apologetic at all. "It's part of the trade, you know. Some slaves, why, they get it in their little heads to run away or fight back, and then we have to stun them—or worse—and that just loses us money and supplies." He leans forward, eyes narrowing. "You're not going to give me trouble, are you?"

Mara snarls at him.

"Let me go, you asshole," she spits, and refuses to focus on that word. _Slaves._ He only sighs, as if she's done him a great wrong.

"Pity," he said, and waves his hand. Electricity lights up her body like a thunderstorm; Mara gapes, her face a rictus, in too much pain to scream. After a few seconds, he waves his hand again, and the electricity abruptly stops; Mara sags in her restraints and tries to breathe.

"I don't like doing that," he confides, leaning toward her again. "It weakens you, when we have to keep you healthy and strong. Breeders need to be strong to survive."

Unable to speak yet, Mara shakes her head violently. _Breeders._ What is he talking about?

"Oh, yes," he says. "See, we've already tested your breeder potential. Done a trial run, if you will. Our little pets like you a lot, little girl. Do you remember?"

"My name is Mara," she whispers. (She remembers. She doesn't know how she's still alive, but she remembers.)

"No, it's not," he says. The placid friendliness he'd shown at first is rapidly giving way to a hard irritation that makes Mara flinch. "You don't have a name anymore. You're a breeder, and nothing else." He shrugged. "Well, you'll have an ID number, but that's not important for you to know."

Mara only shakes her head more, denying his words, denying the situation in general. The man leans back in his chair and crosses his legs.

"So, breeder," he says conversationally. "This is how it goes. We'll put you in a cage with one of our little pets, and it'll get you fat with eggs. If you lay females consistently, we'll keep you alive." He winks. "Might even have some fun with you ourselves."

Mara lunges for him. He backhands her across the face, and she collapses in her bed.

"Or maybe not," he adds, his voice poisonous. "Doesn't matter. You're just an incubator, really. Consider yourself lucky you aren't food."

He stands, shaking his head at her.

"Some people are just trouble," he sighs. "But don't worry; you'll learn to like it eventually."

On that cryptic note, he leaves.

Mara curls up as best she can, given the restraints, and weeps.

 

\---

 

Two days later, the slaver comes for her again, this time accompanied by two burly people in faceless masks. He doesn't bother with pleasantries this time, only nods to her—no, _at_ her, a motion that tells the guards to grab her by the arms and haul her to her feet. Mara considers kicking and biting, but feels their steel grips on her arms and suspects that a broken bone or two won't stop what's going to happen to her. She'd rather face it whole in body than weakened with pain.

Such noble thoughts she has as they drag her naked through the corridors, but they can't destroy the niggling thought she's trying to bury in the back of her mind: _I liked it._ And some sick, depraved part of her is trembling in anticipation of what's going to happen next, of the taste of the beast's slick running down her throat and its tentacles opening her up and what exactly the slaver had meant by _breeder_ —

A shiver runs through her body, and one of the people carrying her laughs.

"You've got a good one, boss," the person says to the slaver. A woman; Mara feels a flash of rage that one woman would do something this inhumane to another, but she knows that gender has never been a barrier to cruelty. "She's gagging for it already."

The slaver looks back and gives the woman a slice of a smile.

"I know my business," he says. His eyes lock on Mara. "I know the ones that'll respond the best."

_Monster,_ Mara thinks. _You're worse than the beast._

When they reach the lower levels of the ship, the iron-grey bulkheads flick a switch in Mara's memory, and panic overrides the guilty desire she's been trying to bury. She's been pliant so far and the guards' grips have relaxed; that's the only reason she can manage to jerk out of their grip and make a run for it down the corridor. She gets about ten feet away before the female guard catches up with her and picks her up around the waist, carrying her spitting and screeching back down to the familiar place where she'd been so violated before.

"When will they learn?" the slaver asks of no one in particular, and punches in the code to make the bulkhead lower. He winks at Mara as it grumbles and rattles. "Have fun, breeder."

Mara takes a breath to respond, but the guard shoves her forward and into the room, and then there's no chance to talk anymore.

It's on her in a matter of moments, as if it couldn't hold itself back, sticky tentacles clinging to her legs like weeds in a swamp, crawling up her thighs as if in search of that place between her legs it had so violated before. As if it _remembers_ her. Mara flails, crying out, but the beast entraps her much more quickly this time; it yanks her off her feet and holds her high in the air, arms pinned tight to her side and her legs spread too widely for her to even try to clamp them closed. Mara squeezes her eyes shut, and waits for the pain.

But there is none; instead, the tentacles ooze over her body in a horrendous parody of a lover's caresses: curling around her feet, suckers popping on and off her skin as they slide over her legs, one gently wrapping around her throat, a few smaller tentacles writhing up her stomach and around her breasts, rubbing over her sensitive nipples until she squirms and pants—

And then comes the invasion she was expecting, the tentacle around her throat taking advantage of her open mouth and slipping inside. Mara gags on it and bites down hard, but it's too tough for human teeth to damage it; it only moves forth inexorably, slowly filling up her mouth and throat with its thick length and the slick that drips off it. It tastes sour, like before, and though she tries to spit it out, she can't. The fluid trickles down her throat and she convulsively swallows, over and over again.

And all this time, the beast keeps sucking at her nipples, keeps its tentacles roaming her body. One slides between her legs insistently, the suckers rubbing against her clit and skimming past her entrance, and her traitorous body is _responding_ to it, and she's getting dizzy from the taste of the fluid in her throat and the tentacle blocking her air, and—

She's whimpering, little animalistic sounds of misery and arousal, twisting in the beast's grasp helplessly. All coherent thought has fled, taken over by raw fear and a sick sliver of desire that grows with each mouthful of fluid the beast pumps into her. Her muscles strain against the tentacles, but it's no use; she can't fight it. And then it tugs her legs apart, and she braces herself for what comes next.

Again it pushes into her, loop after loop of thick, squirming tentacle thrusting itself inside her cunt, stretching her until she feels like she's going to tear in two, and Mara is crying, tears dripping down her face like the beast's slick is dripping into her stomach. Then she feels something else, a strange sensation in a place she's never been touched, and it takes her a moment to realize what's happening. When her terror-stricken mind finally puts two and two together and she understands what the tentacle nudging at her ass wants, her cries turn into sobs, and her body betrays her again; she arches her back and spreads her legs and _takes it._

The tentacle caresses the rim of her asshole before dipping inside, the slick fluid coating it making the entrance less painful than it could be. It still burns, but what's worse— _better_ —is the thick, heavy feeling of it inside her, pressing up against the coils of tentacle throbbing inside her cunt, making her feel so full she can't imagine her body could take any more—and then the tentacles inside her all start moving at once, in her cunt and in her ass and in her mouth, thrusting out of sync, rocking her back and forth like a doll as the beast takes what it wants from her helpless body.

At some point, she shuts her eyes; she's scrunched them up so tightly she's seeing starbursts of light against her eyelids. But when the tentacles inside her twist and shift in just the right way, her body arches like she's been electrocuted and her eyes fly open, wide and unseeing as pleasure rampages through her, unwanted but relentless, like nothing she's ever imagined in her life. The beast fucks her and doesn't stop, and she's so _full_ and she can't make it _stop_ and fuck, she doesn't want it, but it feels so _good—_

Then the tentacle in her cunt shudders and thrusts deep, so deep Mara wonders hysterically if it's going to push all the way through and impale her—but it doesn't. Something _else_ happens. Something _else_ shifts and moves inside her, the tentacle bulging and widening, and something large and round slips from the tentacle and plants itself deep inside her. Mara twists to look down at the tentacle where it's joined with her, and sees another lump moving down the shaft of the tentacle, a tumor-like bulge that disappears inside her. The instant it's gone from sight, she feels the tentacle throb once and the round thing settle into place inside her.

_What—_

And then she remembers the slaver, hissing the name at her: "Breeder."

 _Eggs. They're eggs. It's laying eggs in me, it's using me as its breeding ground, there are_ eggs _in me oh my god—_

But somehow, the panic isn't enough to make her thrash around or try to escape. She only hangs there, all three holes plugged, her ass full and her mouth dripping with slick and her cunt spread wide, taking another egg, two more, three—and with each one, little chills of pleasure rush through her, making her moan around the tentacle thrust down her throat, drool dribbling from the corners of her mouth. Four more eggs, six total, and then on the seventh and last egg, her entire body clenches and one last orgasm shudders through her body.

Then the beast lets her go. It lowers her to the floor, gently, careful not to disturb the clutch of eggs it just left inside Mara, and withdraws from her body. The tentacle in her mouth is the last to go, scraping past her teeth with no sign of pain. When it's gone, she feels terribly vacant, wants it back in, and the desire makes her weep.

Inside her, the eggs lay heavy, distending her belly so she can't see her feet. She wraps her arms around the round curve of her stomach and thinks, _In another world, this would be my baby._

_In this one, I'm just a breeder._

Mara—the _breeder_ —curls up on the floor, sore and aching and full, and waits for the slaver to come for her.

 

\---

 

This is what her days become:

She spends hours at a time locked in a narrow room with a bed and a toilet. Food appears on the floor three times a day, brought by some technology that didn't exist before the— _before._ On the wall hangs a water bottle, filled from an invisible source, that she has to get on her knees and suckle from like an animal. The humiliation burns at first; she refuses to use it for a day and a half before they come into the room, hold her down, and force water down her throat with a plastic tube. _Breeders have to stay healthy,_ they say. _Don't make this harder on yourself._

So she gets on her knees and drinks. She finds that it's not so bad, once she gets used to it.

They keep her naked, too; _breeders don't need clothes._ She has nothing to do but spend her time huddled on her bed around her huge belly, stroking it as if she still can't believe what's happened to her. The eggs have shifted inside her, settling deeper, the creatures inside them growing. It's—not as as bad as it once was. The horror is still there, but the desire to claw them out of her, to fling herself at the wall until the eggs or her womb ruptures, is gone. She's adapting. She's learning.

Now and then, they bring her to the beast. She doesn't know why; the eggs are already laid within her, after all. But the beast still wants her, though it's much gentler than it used to be. It wraps her in tentacles, almost cradling her, and plays with her body as if she's a toy. Suckers mark her with deep purple bruises, the tentacle forcing her mouth wide and dripping slick down her throat—she thinks, during those times that she _does_ make the effort to think, that the fluid is a drug, making her pliant, making her _blank_ , though it's never a topic she dwells on—the other tentacles flowing over her body, leaving no stretch of skin untouched. It fucks her slowly, pinning her so thoroughly she can do nothing but quiver and take it. And then, when it's finished, it releases her. She is taken back to the room, and the cycle begins again. This is the life of a breeder.

But after a while—she doesn't know how long, weeks or months—the routine changes.

It begins as usual, with the slaver's guards coming to take her from the room. She doesn't fight them anymore, even when they pick her up and carry her down the hallway (she's too full with eggs to walk unassisted). The desire to escape has left her. They deposit her in the beast's room, like usual, and then something very _un_ usual happens.

Instead of leaving, the guards cross their arms and lean against the bulkhead, locked in the room with her. She stares at them as the beast reaches to embrace her, wondering why, before the tentacle penetrates her mouth and she stops thinking altogether. She luxuriates in its grip, arching her back to accept the tentacles' caress, their slime gleaming on her skin. Two tentacles curve around her legs, spreading them wide; another tentacle slides over her clit, making her tremble as little waves of pleasure ripple through her body. (In front of the guards, she feels shame, almost—then the spark flickers and dies. She's a breeder; she has no shame.) But the tentacle doesn't thrust inside her as it usually does.

Then the eggs begin to move inside her. Then she understands.

Slowly, the eggs shift, their heavy weight slipping _down._ She jerks in shock and glances down, only to see the ripples on her stomach as the eggs make their way to the wet entrance of her cunt. The clutch is ready to be laid.

The first egg is hardest to birth, a heavy sphere that pushes against her sensitive skin, stretching her to the point of discomfort—then worse. She gasps, fingers twitching where she's gripping the tentacles, pain radiating through her body from the pinpoint of her entrance. The pressure increases; tears gather in the corners of her eyes. Finally, her body forces the egg out, so much larger than it was initially. Cracks line the hard shell; she sees the peek of a small beak breaking through, the mirror of the beast's beak. The little creature squirms its way out of the shell and rolls its way to its—mother? Father? The beast gathers it up in a tentacle, and she feels a pang of jealousy. That little being was once _hers_ ; it grew in her body. Surely she has some claim to it?

_You're just an incubator, a breeder. You claim nothing; you own nothing._

Her vision has blurred and her breath is coming fast—too fast. The second egg is pushing at her entrance, but she's too tense to let it come out. As if it knows, the beast slides a tentacle across her clit, the friction shiveringly good, and she turns her head and deepens her throat's grip of the tentacle dripping with slick she's come to love. Once she thought it tasted sour; how could she have been so stupid? ( _Just a breeder._ ) She drinks it down while the other tentacles caress her clit, and almost doesn't feel the pain when the second egg slides free.

By the fourth egg, she's aware of it again. She's stretched out and sore, and still has three eggs to go. With a little moan, she lolls her head back and forces herself to push. In another world, she might have had a child of her own like this. It might have hurt like this. It's natural.

In this world, she has the clutch.

She grits her teeth and births the eggs.

Absorbed in the process, she doesn't even notice the slaver coming in until the beast loosens its hold on her and lets her slump to the floor. It rolls away, tentacles slapping, and tends to its babies. She cranes her head for a glimpse, and gets none.

"Well done, breeder," the slaver says. "You two—" He gestures to the guards. "—pick her up, take her to the next one."

The next one?

He reads the question in her face and laughs.

"You didn't think it'd end there, did you?" he asks. "You laid almost all females. Not everyone can do that. We're going to get you set up with a nice new clutch of your own."

The guards pick her up like she's baggage. Without her precious cargo in her stomach, they don't have to be gentle; one guard slings her over a shoulder and carries her forward. She doesn't struggle. Behind the guard, looking her in the eye, the slaver paces along with them.

"Ready to meet your new mate?" the slaver asks.

The breeder closes her eyes and waits for the next clutch.


End file.
